What a nice story!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Have I had my bit of excitement today!
I need to share this with you, lend me your 'ears' please...

I live in a typical block of flats of an Italian city. In our building,we have six floors with two flats on each one.The neighbours who live in the flat opposite ours are a couple of old people; she is very kind and clear minded whereas he hasn't got his witsabout himself.

7:50 this morning, our door bell rings. Funny. Our son's nanny is already in and you don't really expect your door bell to buzz at that time of the day.It is our absent minded neighbour, in his pyjamas, who is locked out of his flat.Try to ring their door bell; no answer.Keep on trying for a few minutes. Nothing.What shall we do?

The chap cannot even give you a sensible answer. For that matter, cannot even put two words in a sensible sequence. He is distressed and keeps on muttering incoherent words. We cannot manage to extract from him whether his wife is inside or whether he was alone in the flat when he locked himself out.

Unlikely, anyway, at that time of the day...Not being able to retrieve the telephone numbers of their two children,we resolve to call the emergency number. You know the '999'.

In Italy, you have the number'113'.The telephone rings, an operator answers and I quickly describe the case and tell them that we do not know what we can do. He seems to be rather annoyed by my phone call and tells me that he will put me through to the local police force, who will in turn maybe get intouch with a social worker and before I can say anything -- a social worker tomorrow or the day after is not really what we need... -- diverts my telephone call.

After a couple of minutes of pointless wait (just fancy! The localpolice at 8 in the morning... they are more or less civil servants, they are probably having breakfastat this time...) the call is redirected to the previous number and the same person answers again. I explain that I waited and waited but there was no answer.

At this point, obviously feeling vexed by my call, he starts shouting incomprehensible words and asks "Where are you?"

Me: - In Rome,

"What's the matter?"

Me: - Old man mentally confused at my door and his wife is missing. Click. Believe it not he hanged the phone.

Ok, we cannot get any help from the Public Emergency Service....We call the 'carabinieri' instead. Did you know that? In Italy we have several police forces. 'Polizia di Stato', 'Carabinieri', 'Guardia di Finanza', 'Polizia Municipale' + some minor ones.

Recently, somebody felt we were in need of a new one, so they created the 'Polizia Regionale'. With all these valiant defenders of the Law and Order, you would expect Italy is the safest country in the world...

However, after an hour, there they come. A 'carabiniere', who seems to be a lot worried about what falls under his jurisdiction and what not. In any event, he sends for the fire brigade. Just don't laugh, please. At least this is a normal thing to do. The fire brigade are in charge of opening missing people's doors, in oneway or another...

They ram them down, if necessary. Luckily, it isn't necessary. A heavy armour-plated door -- we all have heavy armour-plated doors here; remember what I said before? Italy is supposedly the safest country of the world... -- clicks open like a baby's game if you hadn't double locked it. The party enters the flat: the fire brigade, a 'carabiniere' and a language specialist. Beside the absent-minded flat owner.

I just hate the idea of having the dead body of my neighbour suddenly appear before my eyes. Luckily, again, that isn't the case. The chap locked his wife out, on the balcony out of their kitchen, and not finding her any more inside the flat proceeded to look forher outside and in doing so, he has locked himself out of the flat.

To cut a long story short, all's well what end well... and I'll spare you the other details of the story. Nice way to start a day, uh?

I wish you all have a nice, event-less, maybe even boring day!